Background: Inflammatory airway disease (IAD) affects performance and well-being in horses. Diagnosis is primarily reached by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cytology but this is invasive and requires sedation. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify candidate blood biomarkers of IAD using species-specific expression microarrays. Methods: Horse Gene Expression Microarrays were used to investigate global mRNA expression in circulating leukocytes from healthy and IAD-affected standardbreds and endurance horses. Results: Nine genes were significantly differentially regulated in standardbreds and 61 in endurance horses (P < 0.001). These genes were mainly related to inflammation (eg. ALOX15B, PLA2G12B and PENK), oxidant/antioxidant balance (eg. DUOXA2 and GSTO1-1) and stress (eg. V1aR, GRLF1, Homer-2 and MAOB). DUOXA2, ALOX15B, PLA2G12B, MAOB and GRLF1 variations of expression were further validated by RT-qPCR. The deregulation of the oxidant/antioxidant balance was demonstrated at the protein level by an increase of glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity in heparinised whole blood of IAD-affected standardbreds (P = 0.0025) and endurance horses (P = 0.0028). There was good correlation (r = 0.7354) between BAL neutrophil percentage and whole blood GPx activity in all horses. Conclusions: There is accumulating evidence that, even when systemic clinical signs are not evident, circulating leukocyte gene expression can reflect responses of other tissues, leading to potential diagnostic applications in the future. Although not specific for IAD, whole blood GPx activity appears to reflect BAL neutrophil percentage. This finding should be further assessed by testing a larger number of horses. [less ▲]

With a few exceptions, the emerging field of production studies has dealt mainly with the analysis of Western film industries. This chapter addresses this gap by looking at the growing African digital ... [more ▼]

With a few exceptions, the emerging field of production studies has dealt mainly with the analysis of Western film industries. This chapter addresses this gap by looking at the growing African digital film production industries in Southern Nigeria and Ethiopia, and by pointing out the specificities of the production cultures that have emerged within this context. By applying an ethnographic approach to the study of film production, this chapter highlights the ambiguous position that digital film production occupies in these two countries between, on the one hand, the creation of new avenues of economic and social mobility, and on the other the emergence of strategies of exclusion and control. [less ▲]

This paper looks at migration and the politics of representation in contemporary Italian cinema by comparing one of the Nigerian videos recently produced in Italy, Akpegi Boys (2009), directed by Vincent ... [more ▼]

This paper looks at migration and the politics of representation in contemporary Italian cinema by comparing one of the Nigerian videos recently produced in Italy, Akpegi Boys (2009), directed by Vincent Omoigui and Simone Sandretti, with two recent Italian films which portray the experience of Nigerian migrants in Italy, Marco and Antonio Manetti’s Torino Boys (1997), and Enrico Verra’s Sotto il Sole Nero (2004). Interestingly enough both films take, implicitly and explicitly, Nigerian videos as a narrative and aesthetic reference in order to build an innovative representation of Nigerian migrants in Italy, thus positioning themselves in an original position vis-à-vis the growing corpus of Italian films about migration emerged over the past two decades. As this paper argues, these three films allow us to identify the emergence of what could be defined as an “anti-humanitarian” representation of migration. By defining their attitude as anti-humanitarian, I do not intend to mean that these films assume a negative or derogatory perspective on migration. On the contrary, what I intend to highlight is that these are films that, by using a number of specific narrative and aesthetic strategies such as, among others, the reference to Nollywood commercial and exploitation filmmaking style, make an attempt to go beyond the binary representation that much debate on migration in Italy implicitly embraces, a representation according to which the migrant is either seen as an invader or as a victim. By playing with cultural references that belong to the contemporary cultural universe of Nigerian migrants themselves, these films suggest the possibility of building a bridge between the diverging ways in which Italians and (in this case Nigerian) migrants look at migration. This encounter has the potential of helping Italian directors and intellectuals in deconstructing their hegemonic gaze on migrants and migration phenomena, and has the possibility to inaugurate an healthy as much as needed process of decentralization and provincialization of singularly “Italian” perspectives on migration in Italy. [less ▲]

///Document soumis, la révision doit encore être faite./// The CO2 post-combustion capture with amine solvents is modeled as a complex system interconnecting process energy consumption and solvent degradation and emission. Based on own experimental data, the kinetics of monoethanolamine degradation is included into a model of the CO2 capture process. The influences of operating conditions and flowsheet improvements on solvent loss and process energy requirement are quantified and validated with pilot plant data. Oxidative degradation in the absorber is identified as the major cause of solvent loss. On the contrary, thermal degradation does not appear as a major concern. Finally, this study leads to a decrease by 10% of the process exergy requirement along with a reduction by 11% of the solvent loss, all that by using a single model. Thus, this model provides a practical tool to minimize both the energy requirement and the solvent degradation by the design of large-scale CO2 capture units. [less ▲]

Purpose Recent studies have suggested that metabolic factors (obesity, diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia) and their clustering in metabolic syndrome (MetS) might be involved in the pathophysiology ... [more ▼]

Purpose Recent studies have suggested that metabolic factors (obesity, diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia) and their clustering in metabolic syndrome (MetS) might be involved in the pathophysiology of knee osteoarthritis (OA). We investigated their impact on radiographic progression by an annualised measure of the joint space narrowing (JSN) of the medial tibiofemoral compartment. Methods 559 patients older than 50 years with symptomatic knee OA were recruited for the placebo arm of the SEKOIA trial. The presence of diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia was determined at baseline interview. BMI was calculated, obesity was considered >30 kg/m2. MetS was defined by the sum of metabolic factors ≥3. Minimal medial tibiofemoral joint space on plain radiographs was measured by an automated method at baseline and then annually for up to 3 years. Results The mean age of patients was 62.8 [62.2-63.4] years; 392 were women. A total of 43.8% was obese, 6.6% had type 2 diabetes, 45.1% hypertension, 27.6% dyslipidemia and 13.6% MetS. Mean annualised JSN was greater for patients with type 2 diabetes than without diabetes (0.26 [-0.35 - -0.17] vs. 0.14 [-0.16 - -0.12] mm; p=0.001). This association remained significant after adjustment for sex, age, BMI, hypertension and dyslipidemia (p=0.018). In subgroup analysis, type 2 diabetes was a significant predictor of JSN in males but not females. The other metabolic factors and MetS were not associated with annualised JSN. Conclusion Type 2 diabetes was a predictor of joint space reduction in men with established knee OA. No relationships were found between MetS or other metabolic factors and radiographic progression. [less ▲]

BACKGROUND: Single cell biology has attracted a lot of attention these past few years and has led to numerous fundamental results pointing out the heterogeneity of clonal cell populations. In this context ... [more ▼]

BACKGROUND: Single cell biology has attracted a lot of attention these past few years and has led to numerous fundamental results pointing out the heterogeneity of clonal cell populations. In this context, microbial phenotypic heterogeneity under bioprocessing conditions needs to be further investigated. In this study, yeast based processes have been investigated by using on-line flow cytometry in combination with a fluorescent transcriptional reporter (GFP) and viability fluorescence tags (propidium iodide, PI). Methods aiming at expressing the dispersion of these fluorescence tags among the yeast populations have been investigated for different bioreactor operating conditions. RESULTS: Yeast viability was determined on the basis of PI uptake. Segregation between PI negative and positive subpopulations could be efficiently quantified on the basis of the mean-to-median ratio or the amplitude of the interquartile range. On the other hand, the same quantification could not be made for the segregation occurring at the level of GFP synthesis. Indeed, when cells were exposed to sub-lethal or mild stresses (such as in scale-down reactors) two GFP subpopulations could be visualized by real-time FC, but quantification by one of the above-mentioned methods was not possible. CONCLUSIONS: Yeast population heterogeneity was observed in representative bioreactor operating conditions. Difficulties for the determination of segregation at the level of GFP synthesis point out the fact that one needs to understand the segregation mechanisms for the applied fluorescent reporters, to judge whether simple mathematical tools may be applied or if more sophisticated computational tools are needed for the quantification of the microbial population segregation. [less ▲]